SPIKE LEE - SPIKE ATTACKS 50 CENT OVER THUG LIFE BOASTS

Outspoken movie-maker SPIKE LEE has sparked a fresh war of words with 50 CENT, insisting the rapper should be ashamed of celebrating the thug life.

The MALCOLM X director has been a longtime critic of gangsta rap - and has now turned his attention to 50 Cent for making money out of a lifestyle he'd rather young black kids did not follow.

Lee fumes, "50 Cent has made a lot of money, but whatever you are doing that makes you have to put a bulletproof vest on your five-year-old son, that's time for some deep introspective s**t.

"That whole mantra, 'Get Rich or Die Tryin', for me that's criminal because young brothers, they took that to heart.

"(They're like), 'Whatever I got to do to get them rims, get my fly gear, to get my bitches and hos, I am going to do it. F**k who I got to hurt, who I got to shoot, who I got to kill.' That's crazy to me."

And Lee is incensed by banned GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN' movie posters that featured 50 Cent with a gun in one hand and a baby in the other.

He tells Complex magazine, "If it's just a movie, would people be shooting in the theatres on the opening weekend?"